Friday, December 07, 2007

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One Times Square From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One Times Square is the name of the building in Times Square upon which the famous New Year's Times Square Ball drop is performed annually. It was originally built by the New York Times in 1904 as a headquarters for their operations. Upon completion, the 25 story, 395 foot (120 m) skyscraper was acknowledged as the second tallest building in the world.

The New York Times held a celebration of the opening of its new headquarters with a display of fireworks on January 1, 1905, at midnight. This celebration at Times Square has been held for 102 years and continues to this day. The famous New Year's Eve Ball drop tradition began in 1907. The dropping of the ball was adapted from the United States Naval Observatory practice of lowering a time ball with a flag to signal the time of noon. This goes back to the mid 1800s.

Less than ten years after moving to One Times Square, The New York Times moved its corporate headquarters to a nearby building, 229 West 43rd Street, in 1913.

In 1928, the famous electric news ticker display near the base of the building was first used to announce the results of the US presidential election of 1928. Spanning the base of the entire building, the sign was originally comprised of 14,800 lamps. The ticker was dark for a decade between 1975 and 1985, when Newsday sponsored the revival of the display. The ticker is now sponsored by Dow Jones, the parent of The Wall Street Journal.

During World War II in the early 1940s, the ball lowering was stopped for two years due to a wartime conservation of energy. A celebration was still held, but the crowds observed a minute of silence for the wartime efforts.